It's Come to This: Lottery for Health Insurance in Oregon

New risk factor identified for early death - lack of health insurance. In the US, 18,000 preventable deaths occur annually due to lack of health insurance coverage, costing the nation $65- 130 billion dollars. 600,000 people in Oregon are uninsured. Oregon decided to hold a lottery for the 3,000 spots that it can afford to cover and 80,000 people have applied. The winners will be randomly selected by computer.

The other 577,000 are out of luck.